Nothing to separate HSV and FCN in Nuremberg

Terodde counters fast Nuremberg start

Daniel Thioune named an unchanged line-up after the victory against Jahn Regensburg, looking for continuity after regularly changing the starting eleven throughout the season. The hosts' favourite time to score this season had been the opening quarter of the game, six of 21 goals coming in the first 15 minutes, and this became seven 14 minutes into Saturday's encounter. The Rothosen didn't take the initial warnings from Robin Hack, curling an excellent effort onto the crossbar and heading into the arms of Sven Ulreich, and a few moments later the winger was released down the right-hand side and laid across to Fabian Nürnberger, who left Ulreich no chance from the penalty spot to give 1. FC Nürnberg the lead.

Having taken the lead, 'Der Club' were happy to sit back and let HSV dominate possession, the guests looking threatening up to the opposition box, but trying to be too clever and not bringing Nuremberg stopper and former HSV man Christian Mathenia into action on enough occasions. But the passive approach from the hosts was punished in the 33rd minute, the Hamburg left-hand side finding its way into the game and rediscovering its form of recent weeks to lead to the equaliser. Tim Leibold flicked through to Bakery Jatta, sprinting to the byline and pulling back for Simon Terodde, who somehow poked through the legs of Mathenia into the far corner from all of six yards out, his first real chance of the game. Just a minute after levelling things up, the visitors should have entered the lead, Jatta again finding space down the left and curling onto the head of Leibold, the captain unable to engineer enough pace on the ball to trouble Mathenia. The hosts were by no means out of the game, preferring to hit on the counter, Manuel Schäffler only denied by a wonderful sliding block from Stephan Ambrosius shortly before the break. A draw was a fair result at the half, Hamburg coming into the game after a strong opening salvo from Nürnberg.